Sparklings: Nursing
by Water-smurf
Summary: Short oneshot. Part of the Sparkling series. Carly has a few questions and the Autobots are willing to answer. It's never fun to talk about sending your kids away, though.


"So… um, sorry if I'm breaching some taboo here, but what are you doing…?" Spike asked, trying to balance himself on the small shelf above the med bay berths with Carly sitting next to him. Jazz repositioned himself on the berth across from the one beneath them and flashed a smile up. He cradled the forms of his four sleeping sparklings gently, the light from his open spark chamber washing across their faces.

Carly flicked her eyes from sparkling to sparkling, naming them mentally.

Chrome, Weaver, Risk, and Hymn all in a row. They were identical quadruplets up to the fact that Chrome was painted chrome, Weaver was painted silver, and Risk was painted black and was smaller than the other two. Hymn didn't look like her brothers at all with a small, delicate femme design and black and white paint job. Risk was the runt of the male litter, in a way. He was the smallest mech in the bunch, and since he spent most of his time just with his brothers, that gave many the impression that he was the smallest of them all. Hymn was by far the smallest, though. It was a fact that sometimes worried her parents and uncles. The brothers all had the same mech design, but they all, Hymn included, had been designed for agility and speed like all special ops.

Perceptor sat down on the berth across from Jazz slowly, holding one of his sparklings in each arm. It seemed odd to see Sprite, Chrome, Weaver, and Risk all sleeping and still. Bolt was usually still if Sprite wasn't dragging him somewhere and Hymn remained latched to one of her parents' sides usually, but all the others were too energetic to stay in one place for long.

"I believe that the equivalent in your culture is nursing," Perceptor said, smiling softly as he crossed his legs on the berth and nestled his sparklings in his lap. He carefully opened his spark chamber, blue light from his spark shining gently on his children. Bolt smiled slightly in his sleep like he did when his armor was being warmed in the sun. The light kept up changing shades of blue, staying sapphire for a moment and then moving to royal blue, or maybe to aquamarine or turquoise.

"Nursing…?"

Ratchet walked down in between the berths, glancing up at the humans. "The spark energy. Sparklings need spark energy to develop. Though, a stranger can't pick up a sparkling and expect to be able to give them spark energy. It has to be one of the parents."

"A mother-creator is the healthiest choice, but a father-creator can work as a substitute," Perceptor supplied.

Spike was already getting glazey-eyed, but Carly ignored him. "So do you have to do it in the med bay because…?"

"It is more sterile," Perceptor said. "It is safer to expose our sparks here. We do not have to worry about infection in our spark chambers or the possibility of assassination while we are vulnerable."

"Is this why the Cybertronians are dying out?"

"Indeed."

"Parents can't give their kids spark energy enough," Jazz said. "Sometimes it takes a full million years before the sparkling doesn't need it anymore!"

Perceptor glanced at the children to make sure they were asleep, biting his lip slightly in an unconscious gesture he had picked up from the humans. "That is also the reason we haven't sent them somewhere safer yet. They would eventually die if we did so now."

"So it's been decided that you'll send them away eventually?"

Everyone was silent for a long time.

"It… is likely to happen after you have gone on, Spike. But yes. We must send them away. I think that it would be advisable if you wouldn't tell them, however. They refuse to consider it," Perceptor said softly, his optics dimming as he looked down at his sleeping children.

"Smokescreen and I don't wanna, Perceptor, Ratchet, and Wheeljack don't wanna, and I'm pretty sure that no one else does either, but we've gotta do it sometime. For their sake. We can't protect them from the Decepticons forever," Jazz said, subconsciously touching Risk's and Hymn's heads protectively.

A frown played across Carly's face. "I guess I understand."

Perceptor frowned, looking into the distance while subconsciously holding his children closer. "I sometimes wish that you didn't, Carly. I sometimes wish that no one did."

A/N

This was mostly a piece done for a little background into my series and the sparklings. I hope you enjoyed. . If you have any questions, comments, or criticism, please tell me. This was beta'd by Enzanlover from Livejournal, so she deserves a cookie. gives her a cookie

Disclaimer: I just partially own the sparklings. Their parents are totally and completely Hasbros.


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